


On Canvas Or On Film

by Nevcolleil



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:52:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1194177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter wishes that he could paint <i>his</i> Neal... the way that Peter sees him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Canvas Or On Film

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompts 'pregnancy' and 'smile'.

Sometimes Peter wishes that he were the one in this relationship with the artistic talent...

Photographs document a life, but Neal has opened Peter's eyes to the ways in which art can capture it. No photograph can truly translate the arch of Elizabeth's throat, her head thrown back in passion, or the softness of her skin, onto paper. The curve of Neal's lips around the tip of Elizabeth's breast... the sparkle in his eye as he grins up at Peter from between Peter's legs, are so much more evocative on a canvas.

Thanks to Neal, they have a dozen portraits, at least, of the three of them in various combinations; more, of just Peter and El, separate or together. Peter knows, from Neal's art, what the breadth of his own shoulders - the span of his hands on his wife's hips - look like through his lover's eyes; Neal's sketched almost every part of them. He sees the love Neal feels for El in Neal's many paintings. Neal's regard for the woman in their lives is so obvious in his brush strokes that it's practically its own pigment. 

Thanks to _Elizabeth_ , Peter even knows how Neal sees himself. Elizabeth _begged_ for the self-portrait that hangs in their dressing room. 

But the Neal in that painting, raw and honest though it may be, isn't quite the Neal that Peter and Elizabeth know and love.

Peter wishes he could paint _his_ Neal... The sharp line of his jaw; how the shadows on his skin shift when he's clean-shaven as opposed to lightly stubbled; the way his hair curls when he's snuggled up next to Elizabeth in rumpled bedsheets.

His youth. His perfection. His beauty, greater for every flaw. There's a depth of potential in Neal - for kindness, for strength, for anything - that Neal only pretends to be cocky enough to acknowledge. Peter doesn't think Neal can even see it.

Peter would like to paint Neal softly smiling. Not in the midst of seducing - or being seduced - or even just simply happy, although Peter would paint those kinds of smiles, too, if he could.

Peter wants to paint Neal when he doesn't think anyone is looking. Neal shy and embarrassed. Neal desperately hoping or quietly thinking.

Peter wants to paint Neal's face, in the midst of an orgasm, the way that _Peter_ sees it. 

He walks in one day, about halfway through El's first pregnancy, and Elizabeth is stretched out on the bed. Neal is lying beside her, their legs casually entwined.El's reading and Neal has a sketchbook in his hand, but really he's just staring at the swollen dome of Elizabeth's belly beneath her silk nightgown. The smile that creeps across Neal's face...

As Peter watches, Neal leans over and reverently kisses the mound that hides their first child, and Peter wants to paint that.

He's snuck in a camera, so he collects the moment on film, but it almost hurts that this is all he can do.

Somehow, Peter has surveilled, pursued, and successfully taken not one - but the two - most beautiful people on this planet into his custody, and he would paint cathedral ceilings full of them. He'd sketch endless murals; write them sonnets or concertos. But he can only click the shutter button and grin, sheepishly, when Neal and El look up, the moment broken by Peter's flash.


End file.
